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#AuthorToolboxBlogHop, author brand, author platform, blog tips, blogging, blogging for authors, Bloglovin', Feedly, Google+, RSS, social media, social media platforms, social media tips, WordPress Reader
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Ronel the Mythmaker 
Hi Ronel – thorough post to your usual standards … I just use Feedly, switched over when Google Reader when phut … I’m happy with where I’m at … and just plod slowly along! Take care – but useful to have all the information … cheers Hilary
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Thanks, Hilary 🙂
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There are some websites that make no sense to me, and Bloglovin’ is one of them. I couldn’t get what I wanted out of it, and finally I just gave up on it. I much prefer Feedly. Much less confusing.
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I’m still trying to figure out exactly how Bloglovin’ works, though for keeping track of everyone I follow it’s doing well enough 🙂
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Great post! I’ve never gotten much blogging action from either Feedly or Bloglovin’.
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Thanks 🙂 I did wonder about that – there’s a lot of conflicting information out there about how many new followers can be found on Feedly and Bloglovin’ (though I’m skeptical about the “thousand new followers” thing some talk about).
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Yeah I have both, and although I have about 100 followers on Bloglovin, most of them aren’t organic, in that most people following me on Bloglovin find me there as a result of me visiting their blogs. (Because of Google Reader not working.)
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Well, even if they’re not engaging at least they have you in their feeds – which might mean book sales (like when you walk into a store and see something interesting and buy it) or at least name recognition and an openness to your writing.
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I’m slowly sinking into depression thinking what hard work blogging is. 😂🙈😂 I’m just going to sit tight and wait for lottery winnings so I can work on this. Haha!
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I’ve read a lot of different things about blogging and getting your blog noticed in the last couple of weeks, and though there are little things we can do to get more traffic (publicise on Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc.) the main thing is consistency – search engine algorithms reward fresh content on our blogs.
Getting readers from other platforms to actually remember they like reading our blogs is entirely different. That’s why I looked into RSS feeds and readers that use it. I suggest that you create your profile on Bloglovin’ (not much different than on Twitter) and claim your blog. You don’t have to do much more, but it might help readers find you.
In a couple of months I’ll assess the progress I’ve made on Bloglovin’ and report back 😉
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If there’s not much to do on Bloglovin’ then I’m on board. 😃 Thank you for the advice.
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I was actually considering recently using Bloglovin’.. This was super detailed and helpful! Thanks for sharing 🙂
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Hi Ronel! I’ve visited other people’s blogs on bloglovin’, and I’m not a fan of the site in its current state for a few reasons. A) When I signed up for someone’s blog, I was auto-opted in to a bunch of bloglovin’ emails that I didn’t ask for, and B) I can’t comment without logging in. This is a problem on a number of sites, but bloglovin is its own platform, and not a super popular one yet, so I don’t like that they require an account to even comment. I don’t feel like my readers will take the time to create an account, and I don’t think they’ll appreciate all the extra emails they’re sent that they didn’t ask for. I’m interested in Feedly, but not interested enough yet. I’m going to come back to this post then when I am ready to dig further into RSS. I think you can add any blog you want to the WordPress reader. There’s a special way to do it, which I googled once, but can’t remember at the moment.
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Thanks, Raimey 🙂
In settings you can change your email preferences when you’re logged into your Bloglovin’ account.
When I use Bloglovin’ to go to a blogpost I’d like to read, I just click on the title once it’s open on the Bloglovin’ platform and then it re-opens on the real blog which means I can use any profile to comment.
Whichever RSS reader you use, I think the point is to be visible. I think it might work well to remind readers who don’t use email subscriptions and aren’t on WordPress that your blog exists – out of sight, out of mind and all that.
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I’m always looking for more ways to publicize my blog. Thanks for the tips.
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Wow, I’ve never heard of any of this before! Thank you for such a large, comprehensive post on it. I’d known you could feed RSS feeds into certain sources, but I didn’t know anything about it.
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Interesting post, especially about Feedly! When I type in my URL, I have one follower, and there’s no way to comment or even go back to my website on the articles themselves! Definitely wary!
I signed up to Bloglovin’ ages ago, but I never claimed my blog because it didn’t seem straightforward to do.
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There’s a step-by-step guide that pops up now when you want to claim your blog – straightforward really, you add the given URL to a new post on your blog (at the top, before the rest of your article) and click claim (or something in those lines 😉 ). Good luck!
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Thanks 🙂 I’ll give it a go on Sunday and see how I get on. The whole idea of posting a URL on a new blog post baffled me. I don’t understand how it works!
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I just clicked “edit” on my last post and added the URL in the first line – it says something like “I’m on Bloglovin'” and if you click on it, it redirects you to your blog’s space on Bloglovin’.
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Thanks 🙂 I edited my last post, and like magic, it worked!
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Yay!
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Thanks for the tips Ronel, I have joined Bloglovin but I’m not sure I’ve claimed my blog so I’ll definitely have to do that! I hadn’t heard of Feedly so that was fascinating, I checked and couldn’t find myself on there, I’m not sure if that is good or bad 🙂
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Wow, thanks for doing all the research and summarizing this here. I’ve been meaning to look into this and never get around to it. I’m going to bookmark this post so I can read it carefully and make some improvements!
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Thanks for this information. I will look into Feedly and Bloglovin’.
Some info on Feedly, RSS feeds and copyright:
RSSs are collected by webcrawlers, programs that “crawl” (go from link to link) through the internet and gather unformatted content (namely XML content). (God I hated writing the program to create one. Don’t miss that at all as a writer.) The feed then takes the XML file from your site and displays it, formatting all of the information identically. Sites like Feedly are just aggregators, and as such they will display your content as long as there are links to it. (which in some sense is a good thing)
I was curious so I looked a bit into the controversy that happened with Feedly around the time of the article you linked to. The main issue in 2013 was regarding links in Feedly not linking back to the original site and instead only linking back to their own Feedly-version of the content. However, that issue was resolved.
Just to be sure, I checked your content (& mine) and the title of the article links back to your site and the share buttons provide the direct links to your site.
However, I understand your concerns about missing out on followers.
People can follow you on Feedly and not your site. However, the upside of Feedly is that you may get exposure that you wouldn’t have otherwise. If a follower likes your content enough they may sign up for email if you create a newsletter etc. It isn’t the best situation, I admit, but the law is murky. Here is a good article on the legal gray areas regarding RSS and copyright. http://www.feedforall.com/rss-copyright-debate.htm
There are some commercial service that can supposedly to help you manage your outgoing RSS content and collect some of the followers. One I came across is called Feedblitz https://www.feedblitz.com/ But I have no idea if it is worth it or not.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention and I hope my smattering of research is helpful. 🙂
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Gar… less than 5 minutes and I have a retraction already…
I was mistaken about the webcrawler although that is how I was taught to implement it in school. RSS feeds do not use webcrawlers but do collect the XML files that your site is configured to share.
Your blog service (and technically you) provide the content of the XML file that is used in the RSS feeds, so you do have control over how much content is provided. Since you are providing the content, it is not considered content stealing.
There may be plugins that make it simple to edit how much of your article your XML file contains. (For instance, only displaying the title or the title and a couple paragraphs.) However, I didn’t find any on a quick search. Found an article with more info on customizing it in WordPress https://codex.wordpress.org/Customizing_Feeds
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Thanks 🙂 I like the idea of customising how much is shared…
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Thank you for finding the answers 🙂 I had wondered about how RSS works, but it all looked like gobbledygook – your explanation makes perfect sense, thanks.
Now that I know that the links on Feedly work I’ll go look if there’s a “claim your blog” feature like on Bloglovin’ so one can be alerted to new followers. Like you say, exposure for our blogs is what this is all about.
Thank you for your contribution to this topic 🙂
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I use Feedly to follow over 100 blogs, but I have to say I hadn’t thought through the advantages and disadvantages the way you have.
I had noticed on Feedly that some blog RSS feeds show their full content, so I can read the whole thing in Feedly (which means the blog owner doesn’t know I read it, or get the page hit).
But others only show me the first paragraph or two, so I still have to click through to the original website to read the full post. That might not be as user-friendly for me as a reader, but it has advantages as a blog owner in that if I could work out how to do this, I would get the page hit.
Thanks for the tip to claim my sites on Bloglovin’. I’ll have to look into that, even if I’m happy with Feedly.
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Thanks sharing how Feedly works for a reader 🙂 Now we know how to customise our feeds to get the best of both worlds – EMA Timar has shared a link in the comments to an article from WordPress that shows how to customise RSS feeds.
You’re welcome. Check your email settings when setting up your profile on Bloglovin’ to make sure you only receive emails you want to – or you’ll get news about everything on the site.
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I have to admit this was a bit much for me to take in in one go but I expect I’ll read it over a couple more times. I’ve been looking for a way for me to stay more on top of the blogs I want to read & I’m sure this will point me in the right direction, thank you.
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You’re welcome 🙂 Be sure to check out the comments when you’re ready to choose a RSS reader – the problem with Feedly was sorted out.
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I use Feedly to keep up on blogs that I read regularly but I’ll be checking out BlogLovin’ at your suggestion to see if it’s a better fit. Thanks for explaining them to us!
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You’re welcome 🙂
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